Archive By Section - National

SAN FRANCISCO - For nearly a year, six Chinese crew members on a ship that crashed into the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge - creating the bay's worst oil spill in nearly 20 years - have been detained by federal authorities.

HARTLAND, N.Y. - A house fire killed three young brothers during the night and critically injured their grandmother, who was overcome with smoke when she apparently tried to rescue them, authorities said Tuesday.

CHICAGO - A former Chicago politician who led white aldermen in a spectacular feud with the city's first black mayor 25 years ago pleaded guilty Monday for his role in a real estate kickback scheme just as his trial was about to begin.

OMAHA, Neb. - Two more teenagers have been abandoned at Nebraska hospitals under the state's much-criticized safe haven law, bringing the number of mostly older children dropped off to 26 since July, authorities said.

MIAMI - A federal jury convicted a wealthy Venezuelan Monday of acting as an illegal foreign agent who came to the U.S. to cover up a Latin American political scandal involving a cash-stuffed suitcase smuggled into Argentina.

CARLYLE, Ill. - George Weedon hid a tractor behind a false wall on his property, allegedly for a bankrupt dairy farmer who authorities say was trying to conceal assets from his creditors. But Weedon did not keep the secret for long.

SAN FRANCISCO - The Star Tribune of Minneapolis on Thursday became the latest news organization to receive a package labeled ''anthrax,'' a day after the FBI arrested a man on suspicion of sending anthrax hoax letters to the media.

ATLANTA - The rate of new diabetes cases nearly doubled in the United States in the last 10 years, with the highest levels in the South, the government said Thursday in its first state-by-state review of new diagnoses.

MINEOLA, N.Y. - A man confessed to strangling his wife during a fight over his alleged cheating, dumping her body near a highway and then making it appear as if she had been a victim of random roadside violence, police said Thursday.